


till we reach the sun

by kabsprak



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Drabbles, Friendship, Gen, i'll add tags as i go, they just love each other....... so much..........
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22410751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabsprak/pseuds/kabsprak
Summary: Ben is in the middle of math when a paper plane glides to a neat stop on top of his worksheet.FOR BENJAMIN!is scrawled across the side, with flames adorning the words and a little picture of Richie with sunglasses on giving him a thumbs up. There’s a smaller note folded between the wings of the plane.TOP MOVIE CHOICES FOR MIKEY’S CINEMATIC EDUCATION/HALF-BIRTHDAY BASH (CHOOSE ONE):-Back to the Future!-Die Hard!!-Bill & Ted!!!-every Star Wars!!!!-GHOSTBUSTERS!!!!!*The Losers Club childhood friendship oneshots, in various combinations.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier (Implied), The Losers Club & The Losers Club (IT)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	till we reach the sun

**Author's Note:**

> me: you literally couldn't pay me to watch the clown movies  
> me, two weeks later, clutching seven children to my chest and weeping:
> 
> i'm such a sucker for found family and these guys have got it in droves SO have some silly friendship stories!! i have more planned so stay tuned!!
> 
> fic title is from "woodland" by the paper kites, and the chapter title is from "kiss the girl" from the little mermaid :))

Ben is in the middle of math when a paper plane glides to a neat stop on top of his worksheet. _FOR BENJAMIN!_ is scrawled across the side, with flames adorning the words and a little picture of Richie with sunglasses on giving him a thumbs up. There’s a smaller note folded between the wings of the plane.

_TOP MOVIE CHOICES FOR MIKEY’S CINEMATIC EDUCATION/HALF-BIRTHDAY BASH (CHOOSE ONE):_  
_-Back to the Future!_  
_-Die Hard!!_  
_-Bill & Ted!!!_  
_-every Star Wars!!!!_  
_-GHOSTBUSTERS!!!!!_

Ben sighs. Ghostbusters has various stars and arrows drawn around it. Stan, who Richie had History with before this, has placed a neat little blue tick next to every other item except Ghostbusters, clearly in protest of Richie’s obvious favoritism. Ben glances up at Mr. Carter to check that he’s not paying attention to them, but he really needn’t have bothered—Mr. Carter mostly just drones on and on at the blackboard the whole lesson and only turns around to look at the class when someone asks a question or Richie’s feeling particularly disruptive.

He unfolds the plane and writes, _We’ve seen all these movies a million times_ , with a little sad face thrown in for good measure, then carefully refolds it and sends it back over to Richie.

 _Not all of us! Mike’s movie knowledge is sorely lacking & it is our SOLEMN DUTY to introduce the essentials into his life_, is what he gets back.

Ben looks over at Richie, sitting two seats away from him. The only person between them is Kelly Lang, who has become so accustomed to them lobbing notes over her head that at this point she mostly just grins and bears it. Richie’s leg is bouncing and his fingers are tapping restlessly against his already-completed worksheet, and Ben resigns himself to not getting much work done this lesson. At least it’s just quadratic equations.

 _How about The Princess Bride?_ he suggests, for what has to be the hundredth time. He hasn’t given up on his quest to get his friends to watch it with him and he probably never will.

_You know my answer to that Ben you little dork. VETO, make another suggestion_

Ben stifles a groan. He can’t ignore the veto rule; it’s in the official Losers by-laws and Richie takes it almost as seriously as sewer monster-related blood pacts and pinky swears. The one time Bill tried, Richie didn’t speak to him for a record two days. _FINE_ , he writes, with five sad faces. _We could still try something new, though. The Little Mermaid came out recently, that looks pretty good?_

_That, my friend, is a film for girls._

He frowns. _What’s wrong with that?_

_Nothing at all, my good man! Big fan of girls myself. Too bad their movies are dogshit_

_I look forward to the wet willy you’ll get when Bev finds out you said that._

When there’s been no response for a minute, Ben chances a look over to see what the hold-up is, only to discover that Richie’s giving him a shit-eating grin that Ben doesn’t know what he did to prompt. He furrows his eyebrows at Richie, who only shakes his head and scrawls out his next note.

_Oh Ben. Oh my sweet Benny boy. I see your reasons for wanting to watch the mermaid movie are far deeper than they seem_

_?_

_Ah, it ain’t nothin! Just a little SUS-PECT is all. Got redheads on the brain perhaps?_

Ben can feel heat prickle in his cheeks, up to the tips of his ears. He crumples up the paper and throws it directly at Richie’s head in lieu of answering. It hits him in the nose and he makes a comically scrunched-up face on impact, which is funny enough that Ben’s urges for revenge are momentarily satisfied.

 _Hey, I’m just joshin_ , he gets back, with a little doodle of Richie in a jester outfit, and one of Bev in the corner as a peace offering. It’s not as good as Bill’s drawings, but he still got her freckles, and her smile, and that curl of hair that she’s always blowing out of her eyes. _What are friends for if not to mock you for your sad, sad love life?_

Ben wants to be indignant, but he really does like the drawing of Bev. He rips it out of the corner and slides it into his textbook for safekeeping. _At least I have a love life to mock_ , he returns, which is kind of deeply untrue, but Ben’s learnt by now that the best way to handle Richie’s teasing is to give him as good as he gets. He’s not as naturally gifted in the area as Stan or Eddie, but he’s getting there. It’s a constant learning curve.

 _Not all of us are as romantic as you, lover boy_ , surrounded by hearts and flowers.

That makes Ben pause. Sure, he can’t remember Richie ever showing much more than a passing interest in any girl before, but… well, he’s a teenage boy, too. He must get embarrassing, mushy feelings just like everyone else.

_Come on, you’ve had crushes too, you just never talk about them._

Another pause. Ben glances over to see Richie staring at the paper and fiddling with his glasses. He usually does that when he’s unsure or thinking hard about something. With a deep breath and a shake of his head, Richie scribbles out an answer, and Ben wonders if he’s maybe taken the unspoken question seriously, for once.

_Not me sir! It’d be downright criminal to tie this monster dong down to just one person and deprive the rest of the world. Lifelong bachelor right here_

Ben huffs a quiet laugh. So much for serious. _Mrs. Kaspbrak will be so disappointed._

There’s a noise of delight from two seats over. _BENNY YOU WAG! YOU FUCKING JOKESTER!!! Correctamundo, I could never rob such a woman of my sweet, sweet lovin_

Ben ducks his head. Getting Richie to laugh is one of the best feelings in the world—he does it loudly, and often, but it feels like a gift every time. Still, though. Ben knows what it’s like to not have anyone to talk to about these things, how heavily keeping secrets can weigh on you.

_Hey, seriously Rich. If you liked someone, you know you could talk to us about it._

There’s no reply for a good two minutes, but when Ben looks, Richie isn’t writing anything. He’s just staring at the note again, fidgeting with his glasses, his jaw clenched tight. Really thinking, this time. Ben decides to leave it for the moment. He can always ask what’s up after class, anyway, maybe bribe it out of him with the Sour Patch Kids he’s got in his backpack or the funky tricks he can do with his double-jointed thumb that Richie is continually delighted by.

Ben’s almost finished his worksheet by the time the paper lands in front of him again. Richie won’t look him in the eye when he checks to see what took him so long, instead darting glances between his own jittery hands and the note sitting unopened on Ben’s desk. Ben has no idea what it could possibly say to make him look this nervous, but he can’t say he isn’t curious to find out. He’s about to unfold it when Kelly clears her throat pointedly next to him.

“Can you _please_ chill with the notes?” she whispered heatedly. “It’s fucking distracting.”

Ben winces. “I’m sorry, we were just—”

“What’s all this about, Ben?”

Ben freezes. Mr. Carter has finally looked away from the blackboard and is stalking directly towards him, a predator hunting prey. “Oh, uh, nothing, sir. I was just asking Kelly for a—”

“What do you have there? Is that a note?” he asks, quite rhetorically, leaning in close and eyeing the little drawings with extreme distaste. “From Richie, I assume? Save the illustrations for art class, Mr. Tozier.”

Ben crumples the note up into a tiny ball as if to render it invisible from Mr. Carter’s prying eyes, but he’s leering at it with such keen interest that Ben just knows he’s going to take it and read it out to the whole class just to embarrass them. He’s exactly the type.

Ben shoots a quick, apologetic glance over to Richie, silently vowing to come up with some way to make it up to him, maybe put in a reluctant vote for Ghostbusters, but the sight that greets him is far from what he expected. Richie doesn’t look embarrassed—which shouldn’t really be a surprise, given that Richie suffers from a chronic shame deficiency—but he doesn’t look half a second away from cracking up, either, or even like he’s dreading their inevitable detention. He looks terrified. He’s staring at the crushed note in Ben’s hand with wide eyes and a pale face and his fists clenched so hard on his desk that the knuckles are going white.

Ben’s only ever seen him look this scared twice in his life, and both times they were staring a killer clown directly in the face.

“Benjamin,” Mr. Carter snaps. “Hand it over.”

Mr. Carter is holding out his hand expectantly, and Richie looks like he’s about to puke up his guts, and Ben can’t let Mr. Carter share Richie’s secret with the class. He doesn’t know why, has no idea what’s so terrifying about whatever is on this page, but he does know that he’d do anything to get that look off of Richie’s face.

So Ben does the first thing he can think of. He shoves the whole page in his mouth and eats it.

Regret surges through him the instant it touches his tongue. He isn’t sure what he thought paper would taste like, but it’s even worse than that, woody and somehow unpleasantly dry and kind of mushy at the same time. The whole class has gone completely silent, and he just _knows_ every eye in the room is on him, can feel the stares prickle at the back of his neck, but he doesn’t break eye contact with Mr. Carter. He just keeps chewing.

Mr. Carter looks like he isn’t really sure what to do with himself, which might have made Ben laugh if his mouth weren’t so utterly preoccupied. Someone to his left snickers quietly, and Ben feels his face go redder and redder as the whispers increase and the minute he’s been at it drags itself excruciatingly out into what honestly feels like an hour.

A very reasonable voice in Ben’s head is yelling at him to spit it out, because there is something in his mouth that definitely does not belong there, but he’s pretty sure the only thing worse at this point than swallowing the note would be letting a moist ball of paper slide off his tongue and plop sadly onto his desk for everyone to see, so he ignores the way his brain and jaw and tastebuds are panicking over what he’s putting them through and just keeps on chewing.

Eventually, at _last_ , minutes or an eternity later, he swallows. Coughs a little. Swallows again. Tries desperately to summon any saliva at all into his mouth. Someone behind him starts clapping, but is quickly hushed by a glare from Mr. Carter. Ben smiles uncomfortably up at him.

“May I please have some water?” he manages to croak out.

“You may have a detention,” Mr. Carter replies, and Ben just nods, resigned. “You, too, Richie,” he adds, which only gets him a blithe _“Aye aye, cap’n!”_ in return.

Mr. Carter shoots them both one last stink-eye, then marches back to the blackboard, grumbling about insolent students and bad influences the whole way. Ben jumps when the boy behind him claps him affably on the shoulder with a whispered _“Badass, dude”_ , and when the girl in front of him gives him a vaguely impressed look before she turns around, he hunches over his worksheet to hide his blush. Kelly lends him her water bottle as an apology for accidentally getting him in trouble, which he accepts with profound gratitude.

Ben has never gotten a detention in his life. He always does his homework on time, he rarely speaks during lessons unless called upon, and he hadn’t passed a single note in class before he ended up two seats away from Richie Tozier in eighth grade math. There wasn’t anyone to pass notes to, before. It’s not exactly like he’s looking forward to his first ever detention, but it’s also a little thrilling, in a way. He never used to have a reason to do stupid teenager things that got him in trouble, and now he has a reason. Now he has six reasons.

It’s not two minutes later when another ball of paper hits his head. Ben almost whips around to give Richie an incredulous look, because as much as he’s not _entirely_ unexcited for his first ever detention, he also isn’t exactly begging for another one. But Richie is something of an unstoppable force, and Ben is no immovable object, so he just sighs and opens it anyway.

 _Thank you_ , it reads, with a little drawing of Ben dressed as a knight, protecting a defenseless prince Richie from a huge dragon with fire coming explosively out of both ends, which is helpfully labelled ‘Mr. Farter’.

When he’s absolutely certain Mr. Carter’s back is turned, Ben peeks a look over at Richie. He’s back to his usual fidgeting, but when he smiles at Ben, it’s big and bright and a bit shaky, and so deeply thankful that Ben can’t help but smile back.

This note, he tucks carefully into his bag before Mr. Carter can see it. He thinks there’s room on his walls for it somewhere.

**Author's Note:**

> this involved primary research to discover what it would be like to eat a whole ball of paper. i'll let you decide how that turned out for me
> 
> my IT tumblr is over [here](http://kabsprak.tumblr.com/), drop by if you wanna chat!! thanks for reading :)


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